Session 51
Members *Ave *Bob *Fitz *Henderbeard The Adventure We begin today's adventure on the first level of Anforn Caverns, just after defeating the Pit Fiend at the end of Session 50. Everyone was spent, but decided to forge ahead. Henderbeard found an opportunity to use his new spell. At the far end of the cave was a rickety bridge. Since the death of the devil, the cavern had become cold and ice crystals were forming on the ground. A chill wind blew as Henderbeard cast Henderbeard's Improved Mending and soon the bridge was good as new. To the south, the low groan of zombies and a dull thudding sound could be heard. During the fight, Bob's skull was crushed. Ava got bob back up with a healing potion. The first tip that something was wrong was when Ava sliced a zombie with her swords. Instead of bleeding blood or ichor, bugs flowed out of the wounds. When the first one died, it erupted into a rot grub swarm that attacked Henderbeard. Soon both Henderbeard and Fitz got infected with filth fever, an infectuous disease carried by the rot grubs. Fitz soon realized that these were no ordinary insects, at this point plenty of fireballs had been thrown mostly to kill the rot grubs, fireballs solved everything even saved Bob from being revived with hundreds of rot grubs living on her. After the fight and a few lesser restorations, both were cured. Moving forward, the party encountered a warded door. Soon a pounding was heard and a demonic voice demanded the party open the door. As the pounding got stronger, Bob noticed a purple sigil, a sign of demon warding, at this point Henderbeard in what can posibly be called madness decided to taunt the demon on the other side of the door fun was had by all. The party was down and decided to head out and rest up. Before they could leave, two purple oozes slid through the bottom of the door, but were quickly killed. The party chose to head back to their tower and heal up, while there Henderbeard picked up his blade guardian. Bob's order to Rolg had ben delivered as well as a shiny new box that had a strange box that emitted a slight conjuration dweomer. When Bob placed the payment into it, the gold and his thank you note disappeared. In its place, was a note from Rolg thanking him for prompt payment. Heading back to Anforn, the party encountered some slimes and gelatinous cubes in the hallway. They had set up an ambush. While Henderbeard was looking through his bag of goodies, he noticed slimes on the ceiling. Eight slimes and a huge gelatinous cube attacked. It was a tough fight, but the party headed further in and opened the sealed door. Inside Szhublox was ready. Nobody noticed the slimes hiding in the shadows. Henderbeard was the first one slimed. Bob blasted many slimes at once with a well placed blade barrier. While the majority of the party distracted the gelatinous cubes by being beaten silly by them, climbing inside them, "< I did that, Henderbeard, although it was more the thing couldn't exactly drop my hitpoints below zero" or in the case of Bob, allowing her head to be crushed by them, the great magic of FItz tore through their ranks, sometime before Fitz wasted the slimes he used his wish spell to restore the party to full health. Ultimately, the party prevailed, banishing Szhublox via Tito's grace. Ava headed deeper and picked a lock to the far room. Inside was an iron strapped oaken chest and an ancient golden disk. Henderbeard's infirmity forced him to head back to the base for his evening nap. So, the party was forced to continue without him. Fitz, may he live forever, noticed a secret door to the south. The secret door led to an Icy cavern littered with sarcophagi. The area was quickly teeming with OP Tlengle rots. "< undead you gotta hate them" The rots scattered under Tito's light and were burned by the fire and radiance of Fitz. The two that didn't die ran to the next room and everyone heard some strange crunching sounds, the zombies grunted then went silent. Healing up with their new potions, the party forged on. Ava fell into a pit trap, and Bob fell in after a secondary trap was triggered. The benevolent Fitz dragged Ava and Bob out of a pit trap they so foolishly fell into. He then herded the two into a strange room to the west. Here a strange pool of ectoplasm writhed, almost alive with motion. The third one over, Fitz, got grabbed by the ankle and was pulled in by a strange tentacle. Flying and walking on the ceiling, the party just made it to the other side. Tentacles were all over the place by this point. Bob opened the door to the north to be surprised by six more Tlengle rots. As the door was flung open to escape the writhing and reaching tendrils in the ectoplasm, Tlengle rots charged into the green goo room. Bob and Fitz were sent spiraling into the green ectoplasm. Ava, it seemed, would soon follow. Fitz quickly Misty-stepped out of the tentacle's hold and soon Bob broke free by spider climbing up the wall, he called on Tito's brilliance to scatter the foul creatures. The bumbling undead cowered, bumped into one another, and careened mournfully into the ectoplasm. The green goo of madness took no sides in the conflict, dragging the capering undead into it. The heroes then corralled the cowering undead into the green goo room and slammed the door to the room, trapping the undead inside. Fitz used the Wand of Kolorom to wizard lock the door, sealing the fate of the creatures. The hideous cries of the undead Tlengle escaped from the room, but the undead did not. Strangely, the party heard another voice echoing down the hallway to the west. The pathetic voice beseeched any that might hear it for help. Ultimately, the voice coaxed Bob in its direction. The strange humanoid, the owner of the pathetic and pleading voice, was an emaciated humanoid prisoner. Bod attempted to give him food, but its hunger was for magic not food. It grappled Bob through the cell bars. Spells had no effect on the creature, in fact, spells seemed to invigorate the prisoner. It absorbed the magic of Bob's Sacred Flame and broke free of its cell. Bob conjured a Spiritual Hammer and lured the creature back into its cell. As the 'Spell Starved' feasted on Bob's Spiritual Hammer, the heroes dashed down the corridor toward the stairs that exited the level. Anticipating the Pit Fiend on the other side of those stairs, the party decided that Bob would attempt to banish the demon, if this failed, Fitz would teleport the party out of the dungeon. As the adventures reached the stairs they heard pursuit at their back. Undoubtedly, the Spell Starved had devoured the hammer of force already and hungered still. It was chasing them. If it drained them of their few remaining spells the Pit Fiend would make short work of them. At a full run, the party entered a circular room from the stairs. Tlengle statues and tapestries decorated the room. The floor had a mosaic pattern done with gold, brown, orange, and green tiles. The walls were covered in tapestries that depicted scenes from Tlengle history. The creation of the Tlengle, the forging of Zlmnrdra, and some of the great tailors and weavers of legend. There were several alcoves around the room, each lined in black velvet, showcasing great statues of forgotten Tlengle leaders. All were overshadowed by a huge statue to the east, a two meter tall squat reptile. What now, they asked? Sounds of the Spell Starved's pursuit grew in volume, its feet could be heard on the stairs. Ava instantly knew it was an artifact of great value. Fitz sensed its magic. Bob was ready for a fight. In fact, everyone was ready for a fight. The Taldor zombies had them on edge. After realizing that the statues were just statues, Fitz started to examine the white marble statue to the east. He couldn't decipher what it was, and in the process, put his hand on it. His fingers and palm were instantly bound and the statue began to change. Within seconds it transformed into an exact likeness of Fitz. After the change, a 10 foot tall Taldor stormed out of the door to the the north. He demanded to know what was going on and why the party defiled his statue. The party quickly learned that it was the last likeness of a demi-god that perished during the God Wars. At least, now the Taldor had a likeness of Fitz. The party was obviously befuddled at the Taldor's anger. A likeness of some old demi-god had been replaced by a likeness of Fitz, one would think the robed Taldor would have said thank you and left it at that. Regardless, things were not going well, until Fitz complemented the Taldor on his the 'fantastic' robe he wore. Seeing that at least one of the party possessed good taste, he instantly warmed to them and began talking about the Taldor's love for tailoring. He introduced himself as Kralsmblt, a cleric of Zlntrlkopfr. Moments later, the Spell Starved entered the room. Its eyes were wild with hunger. Kralsmblt and Fitz lured the creature into a trap door by remarking on the the yumminess of Fitz wand saying "Yum, Yum wand, num num come, yum wand". Kralsmbit opened the trap door just as the creature stepped on it, and the Spell Starved plunged through, caged once again. Kralsmbit then led them to a library. It was filled with many shelves of books and a few comfortable, albeit large chairs. On the main table was a thick leather bound tome with a silver cover. Stamped into the cover was a likeness of a Tlengle's head with two small green flecked opals as eyes. The room seemed to house the clever humor of the people. While this clever humor would be lost on Grimweld, it did shine a certain light on these people.The party continued to talk to Kralsmblt and listened to his jokes. As they laughed, he warmed up to them even more, but was adamant that they could not see Zlntrlkopfr. The process for becoming an acolyte alone tool over 100 years. He was clearly proud of his god and took some offense when the party compared his a brother to Tito. Bob quickly got more circumspect in his description of their quest. When Ava finally whispered 'Rkdldn', the librarian demanded to know how he knew ancient Tlenglese, then called in another member of the temple. It was a strange Tlengle, short and squat. A misshapen Tlengle midget. The midget soon ran from the room, leaving the confused Henderbeards to wonder what happened. Minutes later the entire complex vibrated with a huge gong sound and accompanying trumpets. Kralsmblt's eyes went wide and he dashed out of the room, following the midget. Bob and the crew were even more confused. Ava took the opportunity to glance through the book though. It appeared to be written by a Tlengle named Pyrokorius, a name that sparked Bob's memory. That Tlengle was famous throughout Tarq and known to the dwarves as "Inferno". The book was written in archaic Tlenglese, but Ava could get the gist of it. The contents detailed the early history of three distinct clans of Tlengle, the interior politics of each clan, and the rumored locations of the three clans’ hordes. After getting restless, Ava headed back to the statue room and met Kralsmblt as he was returning. Ava ultimately persuaded the Taldor to grant the party the benefit of the doubt. The large cleric was very happy and offered the party food and drink. Leading them further into the temple, he offered seats at a large table and ordered food and drink. Bob was looking for beer, but they only had a deep red Tlengle wine. The variety of food was large, but it was all meat. Light meat, dark meat, fowl, pork, and other cuts of indeterminate origin. Kralsmblt offered a toast to his god. He did notice that Fitz only pretended to take a sip and was almost offended, until Fitz pulled off a good show of faking it. After many stories and jokes, the old Tlengle passed out on the floor. Everyone struggled to drag him to a bed and then took their rest in the open rooms. Thus we end Session 51. Quote of the day: I got a fucking dagger -Fitz XP 30,000 XP to all who attended. Loot An iron-strapped oaken coffer holding 12 trade bars of silver from “Manham’s Trading Cartel”. (25gp each) A golden disk with nine small gems inset (diamond, emerald, sapphire, ruby, onyx, pearl, moonstone, jacinth, and jet). Disks such as this are used in the Wizards’ Guild to identify someone as an archmage. (1,000gp)